to take it again.
Tramps slept there till the roof fell in, and then the hawks and owls took
it over; but fifty years agone she flourished and did pretty well there,
one way and another, though 'twas more by the people that visited her for
her wisdom than anything she made out of the tumble-down farm. More'n a
cow or two she never had no cattle, and the last sheep to Walna went to
pay for farmer Badge's coffin.

I was a maiden then and worked for Mrs. Badge, so I comed to see a lot
about her and marked her manner of life. Half the things she did was
thought to be miracles by the Postbridge people, yet if you saw the
workings of 'em from inside, you found that, after all, they was only
built on common sense. Still, I'll grant you that common sense itself is a
miracle. 'Tis only one in a million ever shows it; and that one's pretty
near sure to be a woman.

Charity was a thin, brown creature--birdlike in her ways, with quick
movements, quick hands, and quick eyes. She never had no childer, and
never wanted none. In fact, she was pretty well alone in the world after
her husband died. There was a lot of Badges, of course, and still are; but
she never had no use for them, nor them for her.

And now I'll tell the story of Sarah White and Mary Tuckett and Peter
Hacker, the master of Bellaford.

Sarah was a lone creature up fifty year old, and she come along to Mrs.
Badge one fine day with a proper peck of troubles. She crept down the path
to Walna from Merripit Hill, like a snail with a backache, and weren't in
no case at all for merriment; yet the first thing she heard as she come in
was laughter; and the first thing she seed was pretty Mary Tuckett sitting
on Mrs. Badge's kitchen table, swinging her legs, and eating bits of raw
rhubarb out of a pie as my mistress was trying to make.

Mary was a beauty, and a bit too fond of No. 1, like most of that sort.

"'Tis too bad," she said to the new-comer, "ban't it too bad, Mrs. White?
Here's Charity, well known for the cleverest woman 'pon Dartymoor, won't
tell me my fortune or look in her crystal for me, though I be offering her
a two-shilling piece to do so."

"You go along," said Charity. "Don't you waste no more of my time, and let
your fortune take care of itself. It don't want a wise woman to tell the
fortune of such a lazy, good-for-nought as you."

Then Mary went off laughing, and poor Mrs. White began her woes.

"I could have told that woman something as would ha